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The Kingdom of Idenau is a place of magic and curses and endless adventure, of ghosts and demons and talking fish, where gods act but don’t speak, and where an army of villains still can’t defeat a single hero. It’s the setting of The Fourth, a webcomic that parodies fantasy stories and adventure/role-playing games while telling its own story.

We’re Courtney and Victor, a creator couple in our mid-20s. Thanks for checking out our comic! We intend this page to provide a brief intro that will hopefully spark your interest.

Plot

Our story centers on the accursed Lord Tiberius Skärva the Fourth and his schemes to defeat Blank, the chosen Hero of the Gods. At Skärva’s side are his best friend and henchman, Derk, as well as Lorelei, a mysterious little girl with unusual power. We also focus on one of Skärva’s many minion teams, the efforts of whose workaholic of a leader get them involved with the Lord’s schemes to an uncommon degree.

The comic begins by introducing some of Skärva’s typical schemes, but after one too many humiliating defeats, the bulk of the story consists of his efforts to go over the Hero’s head and confront the power of the gods at its source.

Comic Info
The Fourth started back in 2011 and has updated constantly since then (with a few couple-week vacations here and there). In that time, the story and the art have made a lot of progress!

That does mean that in order to make sense of stuff, you’ll have to start from the beginning. Courtney apologizes for the… um… less-polished state of her art at the time, but hopes you’ll enjoy seeing her skill evolve along with the plot! Check out our archive to get started.

The World of Idenau
We’ve always wanted to show how the mechanics of a video game would function in the real living world of its villains and heroes, and therefore we employ themes you’re familiar with. But while we always intended our comic to parody common fantasy and video game tropes, we’ve put a lot of effort into bringing our world and its characters to life. Idenau (ID-uh-now) has its own religion, holidays, and history, some of which can be learned through our encyclopedia entries and Q&As, some of which can be pieced together from the story itself, and much of which has yet to be revealed.

Keeping up with the Comic
Our ideal is to update at midnight central time when it becomes Wednesday and Friday. However, since we both work full-time and have other obligations, things don’t always turn out that way. We’ll try to keep you informed via announcements on the site itself when the page is going to be late. You can also follow our Facebook, Tumblr, or Courtney’s Twitter to be notified of updates.

We really love talking to our readers, and try to respond to the comments here as much as possible. We also love to answer questions – although we don’t want to give future plot points away! If you’re enjoying the comic, let us know – and tell your friends!